


Have a Heart

by hexagonad (ideserveyou)



Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 17:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideserveyou/pseuds/hexagonad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone sends Howard an unexpected Valentine</p>
            </blockquote>





	Have a Heart

This morning, as usual, Bollo brings the post upstairs, huffing and puffing and muttering under his breath. “Don’t know why I do this. Tomorrow I stop. Bollo familiar, not postman.”  
As usual, he stomps into the kitchen and dumps the letters on the breakfast table in two piles.  
As usual, Naboo takes one look at the stack of bills in front of him, murmurs an incantation to make them disappear, and goes placidly back to his morning coffee.  
(Which as usual is heavily laced with something that lives in a fat purple bottle labelled NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION in large letters and underneath it YES VINCE, THIS MEANS YOU, YOU DOZY BALLBAG in slightly larger ones.)  
As usual, there is a pile of letters for Vince.  
Today’s pile is perhaps a little larger than usual, and is mostly made up of glittery envelopes.  
“Yay! Valentines!” He looks up, flashes the surly gorilla a dazzling smile. “Cheers, Bollo.”  
“You welcome. Everybody love Vince. Even Bollo.”  
Usually at this point Bollo will grab a banana or four and shuffle back to his bed to eat them.  
But at this point today becomes unusual.  
“Somebody love Harold too. Not me though.”  
And Bollo drops a final letter into Howard’s Wholewheat Healthy Crunchies before reaching for the fruit bowl.

It’s not a big envelope. Howard dries the milk off it with his handkerchief, and it’s not particularly glittery either. More… smeary, really. But it is, unquestionably, a Valentine: it’s a tasteful pale beige decorated all over with little hearts, and sealed at the back with a heart-shaped sticker with a classical cupid on it. The neat italic handwriting – the little bit of it that can still be read – is completely unfamiliar.  
Howard lays the mysterious missive on the table and stares at it while he finishes his now slightly inky cereal. There’s an uneasy fluttering in his stomach, which might be due to either.  
“Aren’t you gonna open it?” Vince is fidgeting with curiosity.  
Naboo snorts. “He doesn’t need to. Prob’ly sent it to himself anyway.”  
Howard shakes his head. “Not this year.” He puts the letter in his dressing-gown pocket, ignoring Vince’s disappointed-puppy expression, and strides purposefully off to the bathroom to lock himself in and read in private.

There isn’t much to read, actually. A short poem, written on a sheet of parchment that matches the envelope, folded neatly in half.

_Let’s go walking in the park_  
Out of sight and after dark  
Meet me at the western gate  
Half past nine and don’t be late  
Bring this Valentine with you  
And make your dream of love come true  
I will mend your broken heart  
I’ll have with me the missing part 

Howard unfolds the letter to see whether there’s any more. Something flutters to the floor. An odd-shaped piece of blood-red paper, with a curved edge and a point and a roughly torn straight side. It takes him a while to work out that it’s half of a heart-shape.

His stomach flutters again as he wonders who could have sent it. She’s a classy lady who knows his tastes, at any rate. They will walk through the park, perhaps hold hands, discuss philosophy or the finer points of cheese-making. Maybe they can go for coffee and biscuits. Arrange to meet again. Listen to some jazz…

There is a hammering on the door. “Oi! Howard! Don’t spend all day in there! I need to start doin’ my hair, got three hot dates tonight. Howard!”

Howard puts the broken heart in his pocket and the envelope in the bin; then tears the letter into fragments and flushes them down the loo. This is one thing Vince isn’t going to get the chance to mess up for him, or laugh at. This is _serious._

…

This is _ridiculous_. Howard checks his watch for the forty-seventh time since hearing the church clock strike ten.

It’s ten past ten. He rubs his frozen hands together in a vain attempt to get some feeling back into them.

The flutter in his stomach has congealed into a leaden lump of disappointment that is threatening to turn into a crushing weight of humiliation. He’s been had. Somebody, somewhere, is laughing at him right now.

Howard Moon, Man of Action, waiting like a schoolkid whose parents have forgotten to collect him.

He feels as though he’s been here his whole life, stuck in this dingy suburban street on this miserable February night outside this shabby park with its smelly duckpond and stunted trees, waiting for some woman to show up with some stupid bit of paper in her hand.

But still… it wouldn’t hurt to give her another few minutes… just in case…

“Alright, Howard?”

Howard jumps, and gives a startled squeak that he hastily turns into a cough. “Vince,” he says without enthusiasm. “Erm… yes, yes, I’m fine thanks.”

Vince looks him up and down with wide-eyed innocence. “No wonder you’ve got a cough, standin’ out here. Did I scare you?”  
“No, not at all.” Howard leans nonchalantly against the crumbling brick gatepost, waiting for his thundering heartbeat to subside. “I was just… erm… thinking.”  
“Why come out here to think when you can do it at home in the warm? Or even better, do what I do.”  
“Which is?”  
Vince grins. “Try not to think at all.”  
“Vince, some of us have intellectual needs. Some of us believe in self-improvement. Some of us…”  
“Are prats who want to get pneumonia.”  
“At least some of us can spell it,” Howard mutters.  
“Spellin’s not much use when you’re flat on your back in hospital.” Vince hoists himself onto the low wall beside the gatepost, and settles himself comfortably. “So… what are you doing here?”  
“Waiting for someone.”  
“Who?”  
“Nobody you’d know.”  
“That bird who sent you a Valentine?”  
“Maybe. Now please, go away. She’ll be here any minute.”  
“Reckon you’re onto something?”  
“Yes. But I won’t be onto anything if you’re hanging around, cramping my style, you know? Like you always do.”  
“I’m not hanging around. I’m keeping you company. You should be grateful.”  
“Well, I’m not.” Howard’s teeth are clenched with frustration. “I don’t want your company. Not now.”  
“I’m only gonna stay until she shows up. Then I’ll go as soon as you tell me to. I promise, Howard. I just want to see what she looks like – ”  
“Vince.” Howard glares at his friend, who is well on the way to not being one any more.  
“What?”  
“Didn’t you have three hot dates tonight?”  
“Oh…” Vince drums his heels on the wall, and looks a bit sheepish. “I – erm – you’d better read these.” He pulls his pile of Valentines out of the pocket of his leather jacket.  
“I don’t want to read those. They’re your private mail. And if you think this means I’ll let you read mine – well, it doesn’t. I destroyed it. So will you just fucking well – go – away.” Howard turns his back hastily and pretends to cough again.  
“Howard.” Vince’s voice is oddly subdued. “Please. Just read ’em. Tonight’s all gone a bit wrong and I dunno how to explain it and I didn’t mean for it to happen like this or for you to be all frozen and miserable but I dropped my watch in the bath and it went all slow without me realising it and…”  
Seized by horrible suspicion, Howard turns slowly to look at his former friend, who has slid off the wall and is standing very close to him, holding out the crumpled envelopes.  
“… and I’m sorry,” Vince whispers.  
Howard can’t bring himself to speak. He gives Vince what he hopes is a look of utter contempt before snatching the cards from him and starting to read.

_To Vince. Roses are red, vilets are blue, their very pretty and so are you. All my love, V._

_To the sexiest man in the world. From the sexiest man in the world. V xxx_

_To a Total Genius. Takes one to know one. V XXX_

And so on.

Howard looks up from the last-but-one. “But I thought…”  
“Yeah, I wanted you to think that. Been sending myself those for years. Sent the ‘Genius’ one three years in a row, cos I liked it. You never twigged.”  
Bewildered, Howard shakes his head. “Let’s get this quite clear. You pretended to have dates tonight but you planned all along to show up here. Which means you knew what was in my letter. So you’re responsible for the fact that I’m standing out here freezing my arse off in the middle of the night, tormented by false hope and deception. You _knew_ no woman was ever going to show up. Didn’t you?”  
Vince nods, and looks at the ground.  
Howard feels a tightness in his throat again. “Why, Vince? What did I do, to deserve this? Why would you get one of your friends to set me up? I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t bring all of them along too, to have a laugh at stupid, gullible Howard Moon…”  
“Who’s so lonely he’d take a chance on a bit of paper sent him by an unknown stranger.” Vince sniffs, and wipes his eyes on the back of his hand. “Aw shit, Howard, you’ve got me welling up now, this mascara’s done for. Listen, open the last one, it’ll explain better than I can.”

There is no card in the last envelope. But when Howard shakes it, something flutters to the ground.

An odd-shaped piece of dark-coloured paper, with a curved edge and a point and a roughly torn straight side...

The leaden lump of disappointment in Howard’s stomach melts into a warm glow of promise.

“Y’see, Howard,” Vince whispers, “it wasn’t all false hope and deception. Yes, it was me that wrote the letter. Bought some magicked paper off Naboo. So you were right that no woman was ever going to show up. But I’m here, aren’t I? And I would have been on time, if it weren’t for my stupid watch…” He picks the broken heart up and holds out his hand.

Wordlessly, Howard pulls the other half from his pocket and gives it to Vince to fit the torn edges together.

Then the two halves are blowing away on the night wind, as the two of them fall into each other’s arms.

They fit together perfectly.


End file.
